


Grant

by squit (orphan_account)



Series: Ambient [5]
Category: God's Own Country (2017)
Genre: M/M, farming, june 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21543025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/squit
Summary: The Saxby farm gets visitors.
Relationships: Gheorghe Ionescu/Johnny Saxby
Series: Ambient [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1513484
Comments: 3
Kudos: 89





	Grant

The oxeye daisies are in bloom when a red Ford Fiesta rolls up to the front of the house. Gheorghe stands up from where he's been picking flowers to get a better look at the strange vehicle. Two heads emerge, one dark, one light, the former moving familiarly towards the gate, unlatching it to bang on the front door.

From his spot Gheorghe sees Deirdre answer, opening the door before immediately being enveloped by her visitor in a hug. At the same time, Johnny emerges from the barn and heads towards Gheorghe.

"Alright? Got the kit ready."

"I think you have visitors."

Johnny looks towards the red car and front door.

"For fuck's sake…" he says, moving towards the small gathering. Gheorghe trails behind him, flowers in hand. He stops to add some great burnet to his posy, conveniently within earshot of Johnny and the slight, dark-haired young woman.

"...are you doing here?"

"It's the summer holidays! Jamie is wild to see a real farm, he’s never been to one before."

"Go book a fucking farm stay, we're not a bleeding tourist attraction!"

The tone of Johnny's friend's voice turns to wheedle.

"Please, Johnny. You said you couldn't go to Bradford, so we came here to spend time with you."

Gheorghe passes them to go inside the house. They briefly exchange names and niceties. Robyn is tiny, barely shoulder-height, but she seems to be holding her own against Johnny's displeasure.

Inside, on the table is a bouquet of gypsophila, asparagus fern, dark blue cornflower and lisianthus in a vase, sitting next to a gift basket. There are voices coming from the living room: Martin, Deirdre, and the other guest.

Gheorghe goes into the kitchen for a drink, discreetly getting rid of his flowers as he does. He emerges from the kitchen just as Johnny and Robyn come in from the front door. Attracted by the noise, everyone else emerges from the other room.

"You'll have to work." Johnny is saying.

"Sure, I'll let you order me around. Better you than my mum."

Johnny shoots a look at Gheorghe and takes him aside, speaking in a low voice.

"I'll see to the lambs with Robyn. You can sort out the cows and the muck shed, yeah?"

Johnny's body language is a mess of contradictions. He appears to be great friends with Robyn and pleased to see her, but he's also ill at ease and unhappy to be surprised with visitors.

Gheorghe wants to touch him.

"She will be okay?"

"Yeah, Rob's stronger than she looks."

"All right."

In their periphery, Robyn's friend is busily charming Deirdre and Martin, saying, "well, put me to work! I'll wash dishes, scrub floors, curry sheep…"

"What is he talking about?" asks Gheorghe.

Johnny shrugs, avoiding looking at them. He heads towards the door, saying to Robyn along the way, "I'm off, me. You coming or what?"

"Hang on, let me get my gear from the car.”

After they leave a moment's awkward silence falls, quickly interrupted by Robyn's friend coming over and sticking his hand out.

"Hello, the name's Jamie."

"Gheorghe." He replies, shaking the proffered hand.

"I meant what I said, though." This to Martin and Deirdre. "Robyn and I are here to be useful."

"Well? You heard the lad, off to the barn with the both of you," Deirdre says, her straight face and tone masking a devilish glint in her eye. Martin is less able to contain his mirth, but it just looks like he has a spasm in his left cheek.

"We're checking the cows," Gheorghe tells Jamie later, as the latter is putting on Martin's disused coveralls.

"Checking them for what?"

"If they're ready to be inseminated."

"How do we do that?" Jamie says, morbidly fascinated.

Gheorghe tells him.

"How absolutely appalling, lead the way."

*****

Out on the paddock, Johnny and Robyn have managed to chase the protesting lambs into a fenced-in area, while their mothers browse peacefully nearby.

Johnny hands Robyn the livestock marker and checks the injection gun.

"I inject them, you mark them on their heads.”

“Sounds easy enough.”

It’s chaotic in the beginning, the two of them wedged in with a tight mass of jostling, head-butting, yelling lambs mostly knee-high. They establish a pattern at the seventh lamb. By the thirtieth, their actions become automatic enough that Robyn looks up from where she’s doodling a five-petalled flower on a docile lamb while Johnny grumbles and shoves sheep around, trying to find an unmarked one within easy reach.

“So, congratulations.”

Johnny keeps his head down. “On what?”

“Your face. Far less miserable since I last saw you.”

“Helps to have an extra set of hands around,” Johnny says, grasping a lamb under its neck and feeling around for the right spot.

“Your extra set of hands is proper fit,” Robyn says, passing Johnny the injection gun when he gestures for it, dabbing the marker on the protesting lamb with her other hand.

“Is he?” Johnny says.

“Come off it, you liar. We're neither of us blind. Though you’re going to be completely pink in a minute.”

Johnny mumbles something that sounds like “how’d you know, he’s not my type.”

“So, do you fancy him or what?” Robyn presses.

Johnny is silent, returning the injection gun to her as he singles out a lamb, checking its inquisitive companions with his knee.

“Oh my god,” Robyn realises, delighted. “You fancy him _to death_.”

“Fuck off,” Johnny says, wading out of the pen for a new bottle of vaccine from the icebox.

“Well?” Robyn says after a few minutes of silently painting lambs, crushing Johnny’s hopes that she’d drop the subject. “You usually work fast; have you had it off with him yet?”

Johnny throws up his hands, startling a nearby cluster of sheep. “Fine,” he says and tells her what’s happened since Gheorghe answered Deirdre's advertisement, only leaving out all the details.

“You daft beggar,” Robyn says wonderingly when he’s done. “You gormless twit.”

“I was kaylied, right?” Johnny replies defensively. “Anyway, I got him to come back.”

“And how lucky are you?” She demands. “I dragged Jamie here twice, since he seemed to fancy you enough the first time, only to find you and this...this Romanian sheep whisperer mental for each other.”

Johnny winces. “It's not like that."

"Well, for your sake I hope Gheorghe doesn't recognise Jamie from that night at the pub."

The thought is a cold squeeze in his gut. “Yeah.” Johnny manages.

Robyn gives him a sympathetic nudge with her elbow and changes the subject. “Anyway! There’s this training program for young farmers, you might want to take a look at it. You’ll have to go away for a bit, and then two days each month for a year to learn-” she makes air quotes with her fingers “‘innovative and environmentally responsible agricultural practices from your peers and industry leaders’-”

“How’d you suppose I’ll be able to leave the farm?” Johnny interrupts indignantly.

“Part of their deal is income and infrastructure support. I saw the brochure, it’s good money and you qualify since you make management decisions for the farm and you’re under 35. You’d be able to hire help while you’re gone. More help, anyway.”

“Sounds like a crock of shite.”

“Just have a look, will you? I brought the forms and everything.”

Johnny takes a look around for any unmarked lambs. Finding none, he heaves the fence away from the paddock wall, letting the lambs trickle out in a steady stream, back to their mothers.

"How long are you going to stay here?"

“Till evening, probably. Jamie came as a lark; he's never been on a farm before."

“You’re just going to let him run wild?”

“He can look after himself,” Robyn says, helping Johnny secure the fence on the wagon. “Let’s go, I'm starving and I want to have a closer look at your fella.”

*****

The dinner table is more crowded than it has been for years, everyone almost bumping shoulders. With people, flowers, and food jostling for space, it looks almost festive.

Johnny and Robyn have finished their chores first, and are sitting at the dining table, having been chased out of the kitchen by Deirdre, who had been frantically trying to stretch some egg salad and a loaf of bread with the contents of the kitchen, garden and Jamie's gift basket. The result is a delightful array of preserves, cured meats and crudités. Even Gheorghe's cheese makes an appearance.

"Gheorghe made that," Johnny says and immediately regrets it, going silent at his end of the table.

"How lovely, what is it?"

"It's cheese. Sheep's cheese," Gheorghe clarifies.

The fresh air and hard work have made everyone hungry, and there is minimal conversation for the first few minutes, outside of requests to pass this item or that.

"How. Was it?" Martin asks once the average pace of chewing has slackened.

Robyn and Jamie both start speaking at the same time.

“The lambs-”

“There’s so-”

Robyn motions for her friend to continue, so Jamie says "Cows are a lot more aggressive than I thought they would be.”

Everyone laughs, even Johnny, to his own surprise. Gheorghe gives him an encouraging tap on his foot with his own.

“They are starting to feel... how do you say, frisky?”

“I'll say! Sorry, Robyn, what were you going to say?"

"Oh, just that the lambs look great. Gheorghe, Johnny tells me that you're a dab hand with the sheep."

Johnny looks down at his plate.

"Saved. Orphan lamb." Martin adds.

Gheorghe gives them a shy smile. "My uncle taught me this trick."

"So how did you do it?"

Gheorghe's story takes them through the rest of dinner. As people get up from the table Johnny says, “Going to get on with the hay. I’ll take the tractor out.”

“Ooh, can I come with? I’d love to ride on a tractor.” Jamie cuts in.

Johnny looks around for help, but Gheorghe and Robyn have just gone into the kitchen with their stacks of leftovers and dirty dishes.

“Indulge the lad,” Deirdre says, fussing with a spot on her tablecloth. “He’s only here for the day.”

Johnny looks at Jamie, then quickly away. “Fine. Let’s get a move on.”

*****

Jamie waits until Johnny is hitching the disc mower to the tractor before he asks, "is Gheorghe your boyfriend?"

Johnny nearly jams the hitch pin right through the webbing between his thumb and forefinger.

In the ensuing fuss, Jamie ends up having to finish connecting the mower while Johnny directs, nursing his injured hand. It's not until they're riding squashed against each other out to the hayfield when Jamie picks up the topic again.

"You seem really uncomfortable around me. Are you worried I'll tell him what we did?"

Johnny's hands tighten on the steering wheel, triggering a flare of pain in his right. "No."

Jamie turns to look at him. It is extremely uncomfortable at close proximity without the lubricating fog of being drunk.

"I had fun the last time."

Johnny has nothing to say to that. He doesn't usually associate fun with his sexual encounters.

They reach the hayfield, and Johnny turns to Jamie. "You can do the outside row. I'll do the rest."

He shows Jamie the tractor controls and how to set the disc mower into its active position, before hopping off.

Jamie starts out a little shaky, creating wobbly windrows. He quickly gets the hang of it, getting through his part creditably enough. He swings back around where Johnny is waiting with only a few missed spots of uncut hay standing like lonely islands.

"Well, this is far more enjoyable than shovelling muck," Jamie says, jumping out of the idling tractor.

Johnny manages to get most of the first field cut down before something that turns out to be a stripping gear in the disc mower makes a squealing noise and gives out.

*****

Gheorghe is in the cheese room. It was originally a mostly-disused storeroom next to the barn, piled high with malfunctioning farm equipment that had been left there to be fixed when there was time, except there was never time. At least not before he showed up, and Johnny started spending more of his evenings on the farm.

There are footsteps outside the door before it swings open and Robyn peeks in. She closes the door behind her, and says, “Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?”

Gheorghe nods, mostly focused on unwrapping the cheese in his hands, inspecting it all over with a critical eye. He proceeds to rub salt all around it, setting it on a shelf before pausing, his hands nubby with coarse salt. Robyn is still watching his hands, apparently lost in a reverie.

“What did you want to say?” He prompts, gently.

“Oh! Yes...I was talking to Johnny this morning about a farm improvement program, it provides training and funding support for young farmers. I really hope you’ll help me persuade him to apply for it.”

Gheorghe wonders why she thinks he is in a position to make such demands of his employer but she is giving him a conspiratorial look that tells him she is fully aware that he is not just a hired hand.

His reluctance to ask Johnny to do anything must show on his face because she persists. “I know that the Saxby farm has been struggling for a long time. You work on farms, you must see it too.”

Gheorghe gives a slight nod, rubbing the salt between his fingers.

“They’ve never had a chance to take a break, figure out how to make things better. ” Robyn moves in for the kill. “This might be a chance.”

Gheorghe reaches for the cheeses already on the shelves, picking up the first one and checking it for mould before putting it back upside down. “I will try.”

“Thank you,” Robyn says. “I really mean it.”

"You are a good friend," Gheorghe says, continuing to inspect cheese as he talks to Robyn.

“Yeah, we’ve been mates since primary school. I know how stubborn he can be.” Robyn says, watching Gheorghe finish up, wiping down his work surfaces and scrubbing his hands of salt. “He's used to doing things his way, even if it gets him beaten half to death for doing it.”

Gheorghe stills, standing in front of her.

“Johnny can be a real idiot,” Robyn says, her hand on the door. "Please don't hold it against him."

*****

Gheorghe, drawn by the sound of the tractor returning early, comes up to meet them as they return.

"Mower's fucked," Johnny says, shortly. "Where's Robyn?"

"I think she's helping Deirdre."

Helping turns out to be playing with chicks while supposedly weeding the kitchen garden. Jamie delightedly assumes chicken petting duties while Robyn talks to Johnny and Gheorghe both.

"Back so soon?"

"Mower broke," Johnny says, irritated at having to repeat himself.

"How did Jamie do out there?"

"Alright."

"That good?"

"He worked hard and did not complain," Gheorghe says.

Robyn looks pleased. "Tried to make a good impression on the both of you, did he?"

Johnny shoves his hands into his pockets. Gheorghe looks at them both, unsure what Robyn means.

"We'll be off once I get the lettuces done."

"Take some cheese with you," Gheorghe says, looking at Johnny, who nods his approval.

Robyn looks over at Jamie, who is watching baby chicks stumbling trying to get up a retaining wall and says, "Jamie, would you mind weeding the lettuce patch?"

"Which one's the lettuce?"

"The ones that look like salad."

"They all look like salad," Jamie calls back, but he goes good-naturedly.

Robyn goes out to the car, Johnny following. She opens the door to the backseat and rummages around under a pile of jackets, crisp packets, water and emerges with a brochure and a thin stack of paper.

She hands it over to Johnny.

"Here's the brochure and application documents, just give it a go. It can't hurt."

Johnny takes it and sticks out under his arm, fully intending to chuck it the first chance he gets. It takes him by surprise when Robyn closes the door and turns around to hug him tight.

"I'm glad we came."

"Why are you acting all wet?" Johnny asks, but he doesn't push her away.

*****

Later, long after the goodbyes have been said and the car is a little red spot in the distance, Gheorghe emerges from his bath and goes into the bedroom, still towelling his wet hair.

Johnny is sitting on his bed, reading. There are a few wilting flowers beside him.

He looks up to see Gheorghe looking at him.

"Found them in the rubbish bin." He says, a little self-consciously, closing the brochure and putting it away with the other papers. "Thought you might want them saved."

Gheorghe reaches past Johnny to pick up a daisy, fingering the waxy, delicate petals. "Yes, thank you. I suppose I did."


End file.
